I think it's recognized as an important skill, but it normally feels secondary to actually knowing the ins and outs of poker.  Her point is that this thing, that is a useful element of poker, actually paid way higher returns than things that seemed much more central.

That's how I took it, anyway.  It's a matter of degree.

elvismercury

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cc @ek

itsrealfake

Reading people's body language is what she intended, I think

I thought so too but then this surprised me:

But when we’d tell other pros what we were doing, the response from most was “nuh-uh, that’s not a thing.” They weren’t willing to consider the possibility that reads were valuable, maybe because they didn’t want to feel obligated to study them.

I thought being able to read people is an obvious important skill in poker. I mean the term "poker face" is literally about not letting other people read you, no?

Good example of the power of just asking people for help; and also: of finding people who know stuff you don't know, and want to know, and observing them.  Both super under-rated.  I feel like almost any normal person can probably 10x their progress wrt something important by doing this.

Yeah, that's what I love about bouldering.

 helpful. Also, sometimes, it feels like an unwritten rule that if someone is trying really hard but keeps doing the same mistake, that someone more skilled comes out of nowhere and flashes the route

It's also a matter of staying humble since you don't want to do this in a way to discourage them like "look how easy it is for me". You just want to help them.

BooksAndArticles

How to be more agentic

> Reading people's body language is what she intended, I think

I thought so too but then this surprised me:

> But when we’d tell other pros what we were doing, the response from most was “nuh-uh, that’s not a thing.” They weren’t willing to consider the possibility that reads were valuable, maybe because they didn’t want to feel obligated to study them.

I thought being able to read people is an obvious important skill in poker. I mean the term "poker face" is literally about not letting other people read you, no?

> Good example of the power of just asking people for help; and also: of finding people who know stuff you don't know, and want to know, and observing them.  Both super under-rated.  I feel like almost any normal person can probably 10x their progress wrt something important by doing this.

Yeah, that's what I love about bouldering.[^1]

Just observing people is so much fun _and_ helpful. Also, sometimes, it feels like an unwritten rule that if someone is trying really hard but keeps doing the same mistake, that someone more skilled comes out of nowhere and flashes the route[^2] while they are taking a break.

It's also a matter of staying humble since you don't want to do this in a way to discourage them like "look how easy it is for me". You just want to help them.[^3]

[^1]: It's probably true for many other sports, I just have the most experience in bouldering.

[^2]: [Flashing means to finish the route on the first attempt](https://gripped.com/profiles/a-beginners-guide-to-flashing-climbs/).

[^3]: Okay, maybe a little bit of showing off is included but it's all in good fun.